― 3 марта 2026 г.
TURKSOY Secretary General Sultan Raev visited the “ALJIR” Memorial Museum
Mr. Sultan Raev, Secretary General of the International Organization of Turkic Culture TURKSOY, visited the “ALJIR” Memorial Museum Complex for Victims of Political Repression and Totalitarianism in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.
Meeting with the Director of the Museum Mr. Dauletkerey Kapılı, Secretary General Raev received information about the museum's history and activities. During the visit, the Secretary General toured the museum exhibits and examined documents from the totalitarian era.
The painful legacy of the Soviet era: the ALJIR Camp
The ALJIR Memorial Museum Complex was built on the site of a former camp in the Akmola region. This place is known as the camp where the wives of those declared “enemies of the people” by the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union were held.
The museum opened to visitors on May 31st, 2007. The opening took place on the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the “Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression” in Kazakhstan and the 70th anniversary of the start of mass repression. ALJIR is the only memorial museum among the Commonwealth of Independent States countries dedicated to the victims of mass terror in the 1930s-1950s.
The camp was one of the harshest locations in the GULAG system. More than 18,000 women passed through here. Nearly 600 women lost their lives in the camp, which held approximately 8,000 women at any one time. Research into the exact death toll is ongoing.
Women from 62 nations shared the same suffering
The national origins of the women who remained in the camp show how widespread the persecution was:
- Russians: 4,390 women (50 percent)
- Jews: 855 women (20 percent)
- Ukrainians: 740 women (15 percent)
- Kazakhs: 87 women (2 percent)
In addition to these four nationalities, women from Germany, France, Sweden, Japan, Norway, Austria, Poland, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Latvia, and many other countries were also held in ALJIR. In total, women from 62 different nationalities suffered in this camp.
Wives and mothers of famous figures of the era
Among those held in ALJIR were the wives and relatives of well-known figures of the era. Some of them were the famous singer Lidiya Ruslanova, the writer Galina Serebryakova, the family members of the executed Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the wife of the writer Boris Pilnyak, Kira Andronnikoshvili, and the wife of Yuri Trifonov, Yevgeniya Lurye. The mother of poet Bulat Okudzhava and the mother of ballerina Maya Plisetskaya were also among those who remained in the camp.
Raev: We must not forget these sufferings
In a statement following his visit, TURKSOY Secretary General Sultan Raev said that places like ALJIR are important for conveying the suffering inflicted on humanity by totalitarian regimes to future generations. Emphasizing the need to keep the collective memory alive so that similar suffering does not happen again, Raev remembered with compassion all the women who suffered unjustly and lost their lives. Raev stated that TURKSOY will continue to contribute to the remembrance of the shared suffering of humanity, as well as the cultural heritage of the Turkic World.
The ALJIR Memorial Museum Complex continues to exist as a sacred place that holds a place in the collective memory of Kazakhstan and all of humanity today, reminding us of the painful lessons of the past.
